A U.S. House Committee released 23,000 documents related to the Epstein files on Wednesday afternoon — a lot of them correspondence between convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his high-powered associates, in addition to journalists.
It follows the three emails, by which Epstein mentioned U.S. President Donald Trump, made public by Democrats.
The Republicans’ response to the e-mail release, which included a handful of exchanges written by Epstein claiming that Trump “knew in regards to the girls” and referring to him because the “dog that hasn’t barked,” was to unveil a heap of documents to accuse the Democrats of publicizing select messages to make Trump look bad.
On Wednesday afternoon, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused the Democrats of running “one other distraction campaign.”
Listed here are the important thing takeaways from the estate files released by the Republicans.
Epstein and Mar-a-Lago
Trump and Epstein had close business ties in addition to a personal friendship, but in some unspecified time in the future, they fell out — before underage girls began to return forward to accuse Epstein of sexual abuse.
As shown within the documents, journalists sometimes reached out to Epstein, perhaps in an try to gain information on the allegations. One in every of those writers was Michael Wolff, who has written extensively about Trump. In a 2019 email to Wolff, Epstein mentioned that considered one of his best-known accusers, Virginia Giuffre, had worked at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club.
“She was the one who accused Prince Andrew,” Epstein wrote.
Giuffre died by suicide in April, months before the discharge of her memoir, No person’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice.
In it, she says she first encountered Epstein while working as a receptionist on the spa at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., after Ghislaine Maxwell, who’s currently serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, approached her and invited her to massage Epstein.
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Trump has long claimed that he banned Epstein from coming to Mar-a-Lago.
In July, White House communications director Steven Cheung said in an announcement: “The very fact is that the President kicked him out of his club for being a creep.”
Epstein said in an email to Wolff that Trump hadn’t asked him to resign from the club because he hadn’t been a member.
“In fact he knew in regards to the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop,” Epstein added.
Before her death, Giuffre said she only met Trump once and that he was not among the many individuals who abused her. She didn’t think Trump knew of Epstein’s misconduct with underage girls. She did claim to have been forced to have sex with Andrew Mountbatten Windsor by Epstein and Maxwell in 2001, when she was 17 years old.
Leavitt said Democrats had leaked select emails to “create a fake narrative to smear President Trump.”
Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, Bill Clinton appear within the documents
Giuffre’s allegations against the previous prince eventually cost Andrew — now generally known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor — his official titles and his royal residence near Windsor Castle.
In 2011, Epstein emailed a reporter, attacking Giuffre’s credibility.
“Yes she was on my plane, and yes she had her picture taken with Andrew as a lot of my employees have,” Epstein wrote, before arguing that “this girl is a complete liar.”
A photograph showing Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and Virginia Giuffre together.
U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals
Epstein wrote that he’d ask if Andrew’s “people” would co-operate with the reporter for a story.
Andrew has all the time denied Giuffre’s allegations.
In other emails, Epstein proposed possible responses or explanations for Giuffre’s allegations, which included an account of a gathering with former president Bill Clinton on Epstein’s island within the Caribbean.
“Presidents at dinner on caribean islands. ( clinton was never ever there, easy to substantiate ). Sharing a shower with a Prince ( bathtub too small even for one adult ). sex slave being paid hundreds of dollars. ( while at the very same time, she was working as a hostess in a burger bar ),” Epstein wrote.
Clinton confirmed that he had flown on Epstein’s private jet but said through a spokesperson that he didn’t find out about Epstein’s sexual crimes.
The previous president has not been accused of wrongdoing by any of Epstein’s accusers, including Giuffre.
Trump stated in July that he had never visited Epstein’s private island or been on his plane and has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
“No person ever talks about that. I never had the privilege of going to his island. And I did turn it down, but a number of people in Palm Beach were invited to his island. In considered one of my excellent moments, I turned it down. I didn’t wish to go to this island,” he said.
Trump appeared with Epstein at social events within the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s. His name, together with many other high-profile individuals, appeared multiple times on flight logs for Epstein’s private plane within the Nineteen Nineties.
Epstein communicated with the press
Most of the documents released by Republicans were email exchanges between Epstein and journalists with whom he had long-standing relationships, or who solicited his insights on financial markets and Trump.
He was asked, typically off the record, to weigh in on every part from the president’s relationships with foreign leaders to the impact of oil prices on wealthy families in Saudi Arabia.
Epstein offered to broker introductions between journalists and powerful people quite a few times. He also contested the sexual misconduct accusations made against him.
In a 2016 email to a reporter, Epstein denied ever spending time with Clinton or former vice-president Al Gore on his island.
“You may as well add, fresh political juice by stating that Clinton was never on the island,” Epstein wrote. “I never met Al Gore. No diners on the island either, irrespective of how much detail has been within the press.”
What comes next: a vote to release the Epstein files in full
On Wednesday, a petition filed within the House of Representatives to force a vote that might compel the Justice Department to release the Epstein files received its final signature, triggering the motion. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson confirmed that the vote would happen next week.
The ultimate signature was provided by Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., soon after she was sworn in as a House member.
— With files from The Associated Press and Global News staff